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Thousands of e-mails sent internally within the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service show that employees had widely differing opinions about the safety of lean finely textured beef, which was called "pink slime" by the news media. The e-mails showed that some FSIS officials had never heard of the product. Others shared mistrust of LFTB they had harbored for a long time, and still others contended that national news reporting of the subject was sensationalized. E-mails show that the agency tried to convey the message that LFTB was safe without endorsing it.

Related Summaries

Calling its additive "pink slime" constitutes defamation on the part of ABC News, South Dakota-based Beef Products alleges in a lawsuit filed against the network and several of its journalists including anchor Diane Sawyer on Thursday. "The lawsuit is without merit. We will contest it vigorously," ABC News Senior Vice President Jeffrey Schneider said.

A recent survey found that people are still concerned about lean finely textured beef, often referred to as "pink slime." Quickservice establishments took different approaches to dealing with the uproar; Wendy's, for example, ran ads explaining that it doesn't use the substance. The substance is not harmful, but the controversy regarding its use shows that quickservice restaurants "have to start thinking about what are the implications of virtually all the things that they say and do," said John Stanton of St. John's University.

With all the publicity you shouldn't be surprised to hear customers ask if your hamburgers have "pink slime"? An operator in Pennsylvania got asked the question and found out the answer was yes. Like any smart restaurateur, she turned to MonkeyDish's Advice Guy to ask what to do next. AG didn't disappoint. Read more.

"Pink slime," the lean, finely trimmed beef from Beef Products, is the subject of public outcry, but food columnist Ari LeVaux argues it is no worse than other elements of processed meat. The Department of Agriculture inspector who coined the phrase in 2002 did not find pink slime dangerous, but rather argued that it was not ground beef and should not be labeled as such.

"Pink Slime" -- a gooey, fatty pulp scraped off slaughterhouse floors and reprocessed for use in commercial hamburgers and hot dogs -- can be hard to avoid, Umbra Fisk writes. If you want a slime-free diet, your only real options are to grind your own beef from chuck roast, to buy ground beef direct from farmers or avoid eating burgers and other beef products altogether.